Calif. Bans Fracking Wastewater For Irrigation, But Allows Drilling Water

"An analysis by Inside Climate News found many of the same chemicals in “produced” water from fracking and conventional drilling. “It doesn’t matter from a chemical perspective,” one scientist said."

"California prohibits farmers from growing crops with chemical-laced wastewater from fracking. Yet the state still allows them to use water produced by conventional oil drilling—a chemical soup that contains many of the same toxic compounds.

When rumors spread several years ago that California was growing some of the nation’s nuts, citrus and vegetables with wastewater produced from hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, regulators said that would be illegal.

Advances in fracking, a process that injects high-pressure chemical mixtures and sand into underground rock formations to stimulate the release of fossil fuels, revolutionized oil and gas extraction in the United States. But it alarmed environmental, public health and consumer groups, who were concerned that the massive quantities of highly toxic wastewater produced during fracking posed unacceptable threats to groundwater, ecosystems and communities."

Liza Gross reports for Inside Climate News April 24, 2022.

Source: Inside Climate News, 04/25/2022